


Final mission and last performance

by solrosan



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Duty, Eggsy Unwin as Galahad, F/M, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Prince Eggsy Unwin, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 22:03:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19681546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solrosan/pseuds/solrosan
Summary: Galahad, the Prince of Sweden, dies during a mission in London.They have talked about this scenario, of course they have, but how do you explain something like that to the press? And how do you have a state funeral for a secret agent? Tilde has no idea, but it doesn't matter. Because nothing matters anymore.Because Eggsy is dead.





	1. Chapter 1

It’s one of the first really warm days in April. The type of day when almost everyone closes their eyes and turns to the sun while waiting at the bus stop. The type of day that makes all Northern Europeans believe that maybe, if they are lucky, it will be summer this year too.

Tilde watches London through the tinted windows of the black Kingsman car Harry had sent to pick her up at the airport. Her security detail, Mattias Dahl, sits in the front seat with the driver. She knows he isn’t pleased with this arrangement, but she knows she’s safer in a Kingsman car than anywhere else and she quite frankly doesn’t have the energy to care what Mattias thinks. 

She had hoped Harry would have met her at Heathrow, but she understands why he didn’t. She probably wouldn’t have been able to keep it together if he had, yet she feels surprisingly calm right now. Or perhaps “numb” is be a better word. Detached. Disassociated. She’s grateful for her sleeping pills and her make-up.

They take her straight to St George’s Hospital. As the car pulls up she sees them, the photographers and paparazzi. Once upon a time, she had been almost anonymous here, but those days are long gone. At least they can’t follow her onto the premises, hospital security has seen to that, but it’s for the telephoto lenses she put on make-up before getting on the plane. It’s for the story these pictures will be used to tell that she wears pinstriped trousers, a dark grey blouse, and no jewellery but earrings and her wedding band. 

Tilde hates this country and its press with a passion. 

Mattias opens the door for her and she thanks the driver before she gets out. She doesn’t look over her shoulder, she doesn’t look around at all. She gives Mattias a short nod and he falls into step with her as she walks inside.

She’s met by the hospital’s chief, the head of the ward, and two surgeons, all four of them looking serious and solemn. She instantly dislikes them, but puts on a weak smile and extends her hand. After the first round of awkward greetings is over, Tilde’s patience has run out.

“Can you take me to my husband?” she asks the chief, talking over the head of the ward as he begins to say something about how they will ensure their privacy while she’s here. That’s secondary and Tilde doesn’t care at this point.

“Of course, your highness. If you follow me.”

She nods and walks behind him through the corridors, every step being harder to take than the last. In her head, she has divided the trip into small, manageable sections. Short actions. 

Getting into the car. Getting onto the plane. Landing in London. Going to the hospital. 

Now every step she takes brings her closer to the last part of the trip: seeing Eggsy. 

There is nothing after that. No short action to take to bring herself forward, to keep herself moving. Nothing. 

There is nothing after this.

She stops. She can’t take another step. Mattias almost bumps into her shoulder. Instead he puts his hand on her back. He asks her how she is and she wants to hit him in the face. How does he fucking think she is? She just shakes her head. 

“Is-- Is his mum here?” she asks the chief. She knows the answer, she’s talked to Michelle twice already.

“Mrs Unwin went home with his sister about an hours ago.”

Tilde nods. She takes a deep breath and steps away from Mattias hand. She catches up with the chief and they continue. It’s not far now, she can feel it, and sure enough just a few meters ahead is a door flanked by a guard. 

“Here we are, your highness,” says the chief, stopping outside the room. The security guard nods at her in greeting, but she ignores him. Staring at the door she’s never felt more alone in her entire life. She wants Harry. She needs him here, even if she’d said she didn’t. She needs him. She needs someone she knows, she needs someone who doesn’t bow their head to her, she needs someone who calls Eggsy ‘Eggsy’...

But Kingsman comes first. She knows that. She accepts that. She still needs him here though. 

“Thank you,” she says quietly to the chief. “I’ll send for you if I need you.”

Tilde gives Mattias a quick glance over her shoulder and opens the door. She has decided to not look at Eggsy before she’s closed the door, before she’s alone, but she can’t. She doesn’t have the self-control anymore. Her eyes go to the bed immediately and the world disappears. She’s made it to the end of the last section and now there is nothing.

There is nothing, yet she’s painfully aware of the five men standing just outside the room. 

There is nothing, yet she knows they are all watching her.

There is nothing, because Eggsy… Eggsy is… Eggsy....

Someone loosens her grip on the door -- Mattias, she recognises his cologne and who else would have dared? -- and closes it behind her. Finally she’s alone, really, truly alone. It’s a relief. In the middle of all of it, there is actual relief of being shut away from everyone. 

She takes a tentative step towards the bed. Then another. Then another. 

He looks a mess, his face completely broken. Her sweet, sweet Eggsy. Harry has warned her about it, but seeing it is different and she wonders how much is from his fall from the roof and how much of it is Harry.

Poor Harry. What must this have cost him to do this?

“Hi, sweetheart…” she whispers. She puts a trembling hand on his ankle. She can feel his warmth through the blanket. He’s still warm. She closes her eyes and breathes along with the ventilating machine that breathes for him.

He’s still warm.

She doesn’t want to be here. She really, really doesn’t, but she knows it’s expected of her, so she stays even if her entire body tries to get her to run out. She thinks of Maria Eleonora, the wife of Gustav II Adolf of Sweden. She sat in a dark room with her husband’s corpse for weeks. She went mad doing what was expected of her.

It won’t go quite so far for her. She has to pull the plug -- so to speak -- before going back to Sweden. She feels an enormous sympathy for the dead queen either way. At least they don’t have children she can torture by locking them up with their dead father like Maria Eleonora had.

They don’t have, she doesn’t… 

When journalists said Eggsy was going to be the end of the Swedish monarchy, she doubts they meant this way. She’s thirty-seven. She’s not too old to have children, but before she’ll be ready to meet another man, she will be. The Swedish monarchy will die with her.

Eggsy is dead and there is nothing.

They had planned for this, she and Eggsy. And Harry. Or mostly Harry. She and Eggsy hadn’t wanted to think about it, so Harry had done it for them. They had talked about it, there had been a plan. She’s so grateful for that now, though it doesn’t make this the least bit easier. 

Or perhaps it does. 

This wasn’t the plan though. The plan had been worse. The plan had been to stage a suicide, different methods depending on what would end up killing him, but suicide still. Eggsy had written two suicide notes, one that was in Harry’s care and one that was in Tilde’s. They were very generic, they talked about how life in the spotlight had become too difficult, how much he loved Tilde and how it wasn’t her fault, how much he loved his mother and sister, and he apologised to the Swedish people. Eggsy had hated writing them, it had taken him almost a week. Tilde had found that reassuring.

The plan had been suicide, yet Harry had given her a car accident. When it had been clear that there was nothing to do, Harry had staged a car accident rather than a suicide. Tilde knew already that she’d be in Harry’s dept for her entire life for this morbid gift.

What must it have cost him?

Tilde pulls up a chair and sits down next to the bed. She takes Eggsy’s hand. It feels performative, even though no one sees her. Her entire life has been performative. Eggsy had worked hard to change that, to create spaces and rooms where she wouldn’t have to. The bathroom in the morning, before the makeup came on. The breakfast table. The sofa on Friday nights. She had almost got there. Almost.

Now he’s gone and so are those spaces, those moments.

All that is left is the performance. That’s why she wears what she wears. That’s why her makeup is what it is. That’s why she forced herself to pull up a chair and take her dead husband’s hand. That’s why she hasn’t cried yet, because if she starts she won’t be able to stop and she can’t walk out of this room crying. 

What do normal people do in situations like this? Do they cry? Talk to their loved one’s dead body? And for how long?

She sits there, watching him, wondering if a professional would be able to notice that a lot of his injuries were inflicted after death. 

There’s a knock on the door. She glances at her watch, it’s been an hour since she arrived at the hospital. One hour. Where did the time go?

“Yes?” she says, her eyes back at Eggsy when the door opens and Mattias asks if she wants to stay longer or if he should ask the car to come around.

One hour, apparently that’s all that’s expected of a grieving widow in the 21st century. She can live with that. Feeling stiff, she gets up. She kisses Eggsy’s forehead, strokes his cheek. Her hand trembles.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she whispers and her eyes lingers even as she leaves with Mattias. 

There’s movement out in the hall, sounds of voices and shoes against linoleum floors. The air is different, freer. Not exactly easier to breathe, but different. 

Tilde’s legs are weak, her hands still trembling, but her back is straight. Cold sweat breaks out on her forehead, her neck, and the floor seems unsteady under her feet as she walks down the hall. The nausea is sudden and overwhelming. 

She throws up in a bathroom next to the nurses’ station with the door unlocked. She’s not quite sure how she got there, but as she flushes the toilet and blows her nose she sends a ‘thank you’ to the universe that she did.

Splashing water on her face is no option, because she doesn’t have enough makeup in her handbag to fix that afterwards. So she just let the tap run and holds her hands underneath it until they aren’t cold anymore as she stares at herself in the mirror, trying to will down the burning shame on her cheeks and the redness in her eyes.

She takes one last breath -- it smells like vomit no matter how much she’s blown her nose -- and steps back into the hall. She’s expecting to meet the men who walked her there, but there’s only a woman her age in a nurses uniform outside the bathroom.

“I sent them away,” the nurse says before Tilde can ask. “Feeling better?”

Tilde blinks, but then she shakes her head. 

“Think you need to be sick again?”

Tilde shakes her head again. Not that she’d thought she’d be sick the first time either. 

“Come here, luv,” says the nurse, gently leading Tilde back to the nurses' station and gives her a chair to sit on. “I’ll get you some water and some mints.”

Tilde nods and before she knows it she has a paper cup with water in (“and one extra if you want to spit.”) and a few Mentos. Forever grateful to this woman, whose name tag says Maria, she manages a smile.

“Take your time,” says Maria. “They’ll be back for you soon.”

“How did you get Mattias to leave?” Tilde asks faintly, assuming that Mattias must have protested at least a little before abandoning her. 

“Trick of the trade. Don’t hold it against him.”

“Promise.”

Maria squeezes her upper arm lightly before returning to her desk. Tilde watches her as she unlocks the computer. How she twiddles with a pen. How she seems to work with just shortcuts rather than the mouse. 

Tilde disappears into the wall, becomes part of the interior. Maria pays her no attention and being ignored has never felt so good. The people who comes to the desk give her some looks, Maria’s colleagues too, but no one asks. Tilde realises that no one here recognises her. There will be no mobile photos of her sitting here, with a paper cup and red eyes. 

When Mattias comes back he’s by himself. He carries her handbag and doesn’t bother giving it back to her. Maria is on the phone, but she waves and gives her an encouraging smile. Tilde will carry that smile with her the rest of her life. 

They put her up at the Swedish embassy in London. It doesn’t matter how many times she tells them that she just wants to go home to her and Eggsy’s place. Or to Michelle and Daisy’s. Or to Harry’s. She doesn’t mention Harry’s place, though. It wouldn’t be right.

She gets it, sort of, but she hates them for taking her to the embassy nonetheless. She sits on a perfectly fine bed in a perfectly fine room, staring into space. Into nothing. The nothing that now is everything. She thought she would cry when she was on her own, but it’s like there’s nothing of that either. 

Twice she has picked up her phone to call someone. Her parents. Michelle. Harry. Someone. She doesn’t know who. She turns the phone in her hands. She doesn’t want to be alone, but to reach out takes too much of the energy she doesn’t have.

She drops the phone when it rings and when she sees who it is she isn’t sure she wants to answer. She’s not sure why she hesitates though, so she picks up.

“Hi…”

“Am I interrupting?”

Harry’s voice is calm. Perhaps a bit detached. It breaks her.

“No,” she whispers before she starts to cry. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t offer up words of comfort. But he doesn’t hang up either, her tears don’t scare him off. He lets her cry, but she forces herself to pull herself together. As she does, as her sobs even out and her breathing calms, she hears Harry catch his breath. 

He inhales through his nose and exhale through his mouth. She wonders if he has let himself cry at all.

“They won’t let me go home,” she mumbles when she dares to.

Harry pauses. “I know. Percival is moving the last things tonight, though, so it might be just as well.”

“Right.” The idea of someone other than her going through their home makes her uneasy, but it’s protocol and she knows it. Kingsman comes first. The safety of the world comes first. It has to. And Harry trusts Percival, therefore Tilde trusts him. 

“Is J.B. still with you?” she asks to change topic. 

“Michelle has him.”

“Do you want me to talk to her?”

“I took her husband and her son, she has every right to not want anything to do with me.”

“Still… do you want me to talk to her?”

“No.”

Tilde nods, even though he can’t see her. “Will you come to the hospital tomorrow?”

“Do you want me to?”

“I think I need you to.”

“Then of course I’ll be there.”

Tilde’s throat closes up again. The lump of tears make it hard to breathe. 

“Thank you,” she mumbles. There’s a long silence. She doesn’t even hear Harry breathe on the other side and she almost thinks the call has been disconnected. 

Then Harry says a quiet, “Tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow.”

They both hang up after that and Tilde finds herself once again staring ahead into nothing. She should eat, take a shower and sleep, she knows that. She knows, but she can’t get off the bed. Not yet.

She lets herself fall back onto the mattress instead and wishes, like so many times in the last couple of days that she’d either wake up from this nightmare or never wake up again at all.

* * *

It is as sunny and warm as yesterday. Sleep had come with the help of pills last night after two sandwiches and a hot shower, but Tilde has brought make up to the hospital today, in case she’ll need to refresh it. 

The doctors had talked to her about termination of life, and even though she nodded in the right places, she hadn’t managed to process any of it. She still knows what’s expected of her. She needs to tell them to stop all life sustaining support. The sooner the better -- though that’s PR and has nothing to do with medical protocol. 

She’ll do it today. Michelle and Daisy were coming in the afternoon to be there with her.

Now Tilde sits by Eggsy’s side, holding his hand. Performing yet again for no one but herself.

There is a knock on the door. When she answers, her voice is hoarse. The security guard opens and wonders if a Mr Harry Hart can come in. There’s something familiar about the guard’s face, but Tilde doesn’t dwell on it. Harry’s here. 

She gets up as he comes in without letting go of Eggsy’s hand. Harry nods once before his eyes drifts over to Eggsy. He looks a bit like he had sounded on the phone last night, calm and detached, with dark marks under his eyes.

“What have they told you about cause of death?” Harry asks after a short silence.

“Brain haemorrhage,” says Tilde quietly. “They don’t suspect foul play, or if they do they haven’t told me.”

“Good. That’s… I didn’t have time to, to-- There are no marks after the seatbelt.”

The last word is almost inaudible. Tilde lets go of Eggsy’s hand. She walks up to Harry and hugs him. Leans on him. Clings to him. The only other person in the world who knows the Eggsy she does, the agent and the prince, and at the cost of his own sanity he has made sure that both the agency’s and Prince Gary’s legacies remain intact.

Harry puts his arms around her and after a while it even becomes a hug. A proper one. She can’t even begin to say how much she’s needed this, how much she’s wanted to hug him and be hugged by him since he called with the news earlier this week.

They break apart after what feels like an eternity. Tilde wipes her eyes with her hand, trying to spare the mascara, but she knows she’ll have to look in a mirror before leaving here tonight. Harry’s eyes are dry, but his face is greyer.

”Did Thomas get everything yesterday?” Tilde asks. ”From the house, I mean?”

Harry nods. ”We think so. We didn’t keep an inventory of what he brought home with him, but I think he found everything.”

Tilde exhales. ”I want to stay there tonight.”

”His Royal Highness’ guards will be in there,” says Harry. ”I’ll make sure Peter talks to your security detail.”

Tilde smiles, it’s forced, but still. They had always used Kingsman agents as pretend security detail for Eggsy when he was in London. It felt only fitting, because no one at the Security Service had gone through half the training Eggsy had. It had also always been a good way for them to have complete privacy when they were here.

Suddenly it clicks. The man outside, the security guard she sort of recognised, is an agent. Liam or Linus or Lucas… something. One of the new ones. Tristan! They followed him here, His Royal Highness’ guards. She feels warm from the inside out.

”No place safer than Kingsman,” she whispers.

”We do our best.”

”We’re going to take him off life support later today,” Tilde says, turning back to Eggsy. ”Michelle and Daisy will come in a few hours and then… They can’t say how long it’ll take but… we’re doing it today.”

Harry’s eyes drifts over to the bed. He nods, putting a hand on the foot of the bed. 

”You’re welcome to stay,” she says. ”If you want to.”

”I don’t think— Michelle wouldn’t want—”

”But I do.” Tilde puts her hand on his. ”If you don’t want to, then that’s fine, I understand, but don’t say no because Michelle’s angry.”

”Do you want me to stay?”

”Yes, but only if you want to. You’ve done enough for me already.”

He turns his hand to takes her. She can’t interpret what it means, but she puts her head on his shoulder and watches Eggsy’s chest rise and fall. Rise and fall.

* * *

Eggsy goes quickly once everything is turned off. His last breath, his last heartbeat. 

Tilde holds his hand through it all. Michelle and Daisy are on the other side of the bed, both of them crying. Tilde wants to cry. The lump in her throat makes it painful to breathe, her eyes burn, yet somehow the tears won’t come. She just holds his hand, wondering how long it’ll take for it to grow cold.

Harry stands stoic by the wall next to the doctor. Michelle hadn’t been happy to see him, but Daisy had hugged him. Tilde had never seen him more surprised. 

The doctor turns off the heart monitor when the irregular beeping becomes just a monotone tone. Time of death is called and probably noted down somewhere, then everything is quiet except for Daisy’s sobbing. 

Things are put in motion, Tilde’s secretary is contacting her parents and the press office and the communique that had been written before she left Sweden is about to go out. In less than one hour the entire world will know that Prince Gary of Sweden has died.

Tilde knows that. She knows all of it, but she can’t take her eyes off Eggsy’s swollen face.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s a warm day in April. The forecast has predicted rain later in the afternoon, but so far there is nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. 

Eggsy is dead, and there is nothing. 

The last week has been hectic, a state funeral isn’t something that is arranged in the blink of an eye, but it has been done nonetheless. A week is about as long as a modern country can be forced to be in official mourning for a prince in the 21st century. A week is also more than enough time for every media outlet in Sweden to put together a documentary about that same prince. Tilde has been told she shouldn’t watch any of them when they come out — as if she’s planning to listen to a single thing the media has to say about Eggsy.

The funeral procession goes through the entire city. It starts at Haga Palace and ends at Storkyrkan -- or Church of St. Nicholas, as it’s apparently called. Tilde hadn’t known that until she saw the invites for their wedding five years ago. No one in Sweden calls it that.

Tilde walks after the hearse. Alone. Two steps behind her walk her parents and Michelle and Daisy, then Harry and the Kingsman agents. In front of the hearse walk the official Sweden and the heads of all the boards and charities Eggsy has been a member of. The Mounted Royal Guard is at the very front, leading the five kilometer long procession and behind the Kingsman agents, comes the rest of the Royal Guard.

In total, two hundred civilians and one hundred servicemen and -women on foot, and eighty-four horses make the one hour walk through Stockholm. Along the way, the Swedish people have lined up to say goodbye to their prince. Or to watch the spectacle, Tilde can’t tell the difference, but there is something Gustavian about it and all her strength is put into this performance. 

Andrew, one of the Kingsman tailors, has made her mourning clothes -- a very modest, black suit jacket, a skirt ending just at her knees. The gloves and the hat are ordered from one of Kingsman’s suppliers. Bulletproof, all of it, even the stockings. As if she cares if someone guns her down in the street when she walks behind her husband’s hearse. They had advised her to not do this, to make the procession shorter, but when it had become clear to everyone that she wanted to give him a funeral as if he was a 18th century king they had tried to make her wear sensible shoes at least.

She hadn’t listened to that either. At least she regrets that part now.

She also regrets not accepting the sedative they had offered her, but it’s too late and she just has to keep it together for another three hours. In three hours they would take the cars back to Haga where Eggsy would be put to rest alongside most of Tilde’s relatives. There would be no cameras there.

As they walk by Kungsträdgården, just before Stockholm Palace comes into view, Tilde feels a hand taking hers. Almost startled, she looks down and sees Daisy. Eggsy’s ten year old sister looks back up at her, her cheeks wet with tears, but a stubborn expression on her face. 

Tilde almost stops, she almost breaks down. Her composure waver. She knows that this is the shot, though. This is the bit that will be played on the news, this is what will end up on the tabloids, in the future books, on wiki-fucking-pedia -- the tween, breaking etiquette to take her sister-in-law’s hand as they walk to her brother’s funeral. Nothing else today will be replayed as much as this.

So Tilde doesn’t lose her step. She doesn’t break down. Instead she brings Daisy’s hand to her chest, holding it tight, and gives the girl the closest thing to a smile she can muster.

If it had been possible, she would have given Daisy the entire kingdom in this moment.

When the finally, _finally_ , reach the church, all of the other guests are already inside. Tilde, Daisy, Michelle, and Tilde’s parents stop as Harry and the other agents walk pass them and lift the coffin, wrapped in a Swedish flag, off the hearse. It had been an argument, but Tilde had refused to let the Royal Guards carry Eggsy into the church. It had to be Kingsman agents.

Daisy lets go of Tilde’s hand to follow her mother into the church. Tilde’s parents walk in when they have taken their seat. Tilde watches from the atrium how her dad bows and her mother curtsies in front of Eggsy’s coffin.

Eggsy had once told her that one of the (many, many) reasons he was uncomfortable around the Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex was that Michelle had watched Lady Diana’s funeral as if it had been entertainment. If he’d only known that those two men would one day attend his funeral. If he’d only known that his own funeral would probably be viewed by some as entertainment. She wonders if that would have made him more or less uncomfortable.

As she takes the first step into the church the doors close behind her and all alone she walks down the aisle where she and Eggsy had not so long ago walked out as husband and wife.

* * *

The car door closes behind her and she closes her eyes as she tries to disappear into the seat. It is over. The service had been almost two hours. She had sung no hymns, she had recited no prays. She had barely looked at the people talking. All she had done was breathe through it all. Breathe and try to block out the words.

“You can cry now. I won’t tell anyone.”

Tilde turns her head and looks at Harry. She had insisted on him sharing this car with her and it was one of the few things no one had argued with her about.

“I cry when you cry,” she says quietly. It’s not quite true, she cried in the church, while he clearly didn’t. She takes his hand, just like Daisy had taken hers, and holds it tight. The engine starts and they slowly leave central Stockholm behind. Tilde doesn’t look out the window, she doesn’t care if there are people still standing there to watch them, because no one can see them behind the tinted windows.

“You know I’m not mad at you, right?” she says, “I don’t blame you for this.”

Harry looks at their hands, he has done so since she took his. “I know.”

“So how about you stop beating yourself up about it?”

“If I hadn’t persuaded him to come back--”

“He _asked_ to be reinstated. He _loved_ the work you did.”

Her voice breaks a little. Eggsy had loved working for Kingsman, and even if he hadn’t meant the reasons he stated in the suicide letters they had burnt -- public life being too hard, the role as a prince not being for him -- she knows there had always been a little truth in them. He had come to life again when he had gone back to Kingsman. Being a full-time prince would have killed him just as much as being a Kingsman had, it had just been slower and more painful.

“He loved it,” she whispers, “and we were both grateful you let him come back.”

Harry blinks furiously, and not so discreetly wipes tears that threaten to break through. Tilde squeezes his hand.

It’s a short ride to the Royal cemetery in the Haga park, even at their low speed, and they ride most of it in silence. Large parts of the park around the cemetery is closed off today, so when the car stops they have left all staring eyes behind. Tilde gets out by herself, but she waits for Harry to walk round the car and take her arm before she moves. She wants to think it’s for both of them. 

Tilde and Harry walk with the rest of the now very small company up to the gaping hole that will be Eggsy’s last resting place. Tilde has a strong urge to jump into the grave herself. She doesn’t know where to look or how to act. This is the last act of her performative grief and her self-control is wavering. In just a few moments her grief will be just her own and she doesn’t know how to handle that.

No one says a word, no one cries, the only music is a few birds singing and the wind moving through the still naked tree branches, as the funeral home’s employees unload the coffin and carry it from the hearse. 

Harry’s grip around Tilde’s arm tightens when the coffin reaches the grave. This is it. This is the end. Tilde forces herself to watch as strangers lower Eggsy into the cold ground, because in a strange way she wants to remember this.

The archbishop recites a few more platitudes about love, eternal life and sleep. Upon Tilde’s request she does this in English. Everything else has been done in Swedish and according to Swedish Lutheran traditions, but it felt important that the last words read over Eggsy should be in English. 

Earth to earth.

Ashes to ashes.

Dust to dust.

Harry exhales slowly and quietly, but his next inhale comes quick and shallow. Tilde doesn’t need to turn around to know that he’s finally crying. It’s a strange relief. She puts her free hand on his arm, finding a small purpose in offering him comfort.

One by one people walk up to the grave, one by one they leave, until only Tilde and Harry are left. They stand as close to the edge as they are allowed, both looking down at the flower-covered coffin. Tilde digs her fingers into Harry’s arm to make absolutely sure she doesn’t jump in after Eggsy. 

“I’m sorry,” says Harry. “If it wasn’t for me....”

He trails off when Tilde lets go of his arm and hugs him.

“If it wasn’t for you,” she picks up, mumbling against his chest, “I wouldn’t have met him at all, so don’t you dare say you’re sorry for us standing here now.”

It hurts like hell standing in front of Eggsy’s grave, but Tilde knows deep down that the saying is true: it really is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.

She is, and will forever be, thankful that she got to know him and love him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. [Photos from Princess Lilian's funeral in 2013](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CBtc8olEpNan6no6MLpnuluaxrUhLUHy?usp=sharing) (the last time Sweden had a huge state funeral) and the inspiration for Eggsy's funeral.  
> 2\. [Photos from the Royal Cemetery, Haga Park](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1v5mJoMUuBkT9-nYN5nKnLedCjW43yYKT?usp=sharing) where Eggsy is put to rest. The cemetery is open to the public on Thursdays between 13-15 during the summer.
> 
> 3\. Maria Eleonora (1599-1655) was married to Gustaf II Adolf of Sweden (1594-1632). She is said to have gone insane with grief, locking herself and her daughter in a room with the king's dead body, delaying the funeral (according to some, to kill herself and be buried with him) and carrying around his heart in a box.
> 
> It is worth noting though that **a)** it was her job to grieve **b)** separating the heart from the body wasn't an uncommon practice at the time and even more common where Maria Eleonora came from (and she wasn't the one asking for it to be done in the first place) and **c)** her history is almost entirely written by men who wanted control over her daughter, the heir to the throne. 
> 
> Do what you will with that information, but [the cloth that Gustaf II Adolf's heart was wrapped in](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZhnRfn_GR779RtldbeZezw5YVLf338Pp) was saved and is once again on permanent display in Stockholm.


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